Tuesday, February 28, 2006

You know how the details in the lives of the televersions for certain celebrities may change from the Trueniverse to Toobworld?

Here's what I mean - in the Trueniverse, Larry David is married to Laurie David. (Maybe he married her because it would be easy to remember her name?)

But in Toobworld, Larry David is married to Cheryl David in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'.

In Toobworld, Tim Russert is related to a former police captain in Baltimore, according to 'Homicide: Life On The Street'. Art Carney was related to a waitress in Phoenix, as seen on 'Alice'.

In Toobworld, there are two Drew Careys. One is a known comedian and actor who hosted a couple of improv shows ('Whose Line Is It Anyway?' and 'Green Screen'). The other was a middle-management schlub at a department store in Cleveland, according to 'The Drew Carey Show'.

Dick Van Patten was killed off in an episode of 'Cybill', and Jean-Claude Van Damme was murdered in an episode of 'Las Vegas'. (Of course, there's a good splainin for both - android duplicates! I could have just let the Van Patten reference go, if it weren't for the special he did about life in 'TV Land'.)

Obviously with most of these examples, there was a willing participation by those involved. When it comes to fictionalized versions of real-life companies however, that's not always the case....

There's a company in Boston that makes electronics test equipment called "Teradyne". But in the alternate TV dimension in which '24' takes place, "Terra-Dyne" might have been the company that produced the nerve gas which was used on a California shopping mall.

As printed, the names are different, but that's small comfort to the real company when "Terra-Dyne" is only heard by the audience. Might as well be "Teradyne" then.

And the problem may become compounded when the parent company is revealed to be "Omnicron". Here in our world, that's the name of a company back in my home state of Connecticut which makes voice recorders.

Duhn dunh DUNH!

Teradyne spokesman Tom Newman said, “It makes you wonder if they ever tried to vet anything like that. You’d think they could just Google it in this day and age.”

No word yet whether or not the company will sue. I guess it all depends on whether or not the name is used so much that it becomes a problem with their corporate identity.

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Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"